| What Did You Eat Yesterday? | |
 The cover of the first volume of the manga, featuring Shiro Kakei (left) and Kenji Yabuki (right) | |
| きのう何食べた? (Kinō Nani Tabeta?) | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Cooking,[1]slice of life[2] |
| Manga | |
| Written by | Fumi Yoshinaga |
| Published by | Kodansha |
| English publisher | |
| Magazine | Morning |
| Original run | February 22, 2007 – present |
| Volumes | 23(List of volumes) |
| Television drama | |
| Directed by |
|
| Produced by | Masashi Abe |
| Written by | Naoko Adachi [ja] |
| Studio | Shochiku |
| Original network | TV Tokyo |
| Original run | April 6, 2019 – December 23, 2023 |
| Episodes | 24(List of episodes) |
| Live-action film | |
| Directed by | Kazuhito Nakae |
| Written by | Naoko Adachi |
| Studio | Toho |
| Released | November 3, 2021 (2021-11-03) |
What Did You Eat Yesterday? (Japanese:きのう何食べた?,Hepburn:Kinō Nani Tabeta?) is a Japanesemanga series written and illustrated byFumi Yoshinaga. Theslice of life series focuses on the relationship between Shiro Kakei and Kenji Yabuki, a middle-aged gay couple living inTokyo, Japan. The manga has been serialized in themanga magazineMorning since February 2007, and was adapted into alive-action television drama byShochiku that aired onTV Tokyo in 2019; a film sequel to the television drama was released in November 2021. Both the manga and its live-action adaption have received widespread critical acclaim, winning aKodansha Manga Award, aGalaxy Award, and multiple Television Drama Academy Awards.
What Did You Eat Yesterday? follows Shiro Kakei and Kenji Yabuki, a middle aged gay couple living in Tokyo, Japan. Shiro is a serious and reservedlawyer, while Kenji is cheerful and outgoinghairdresser. Each chapter in the series focuses on Shiro and Kenji as they encounter a particular comedic or dramatic scenario, often focused around issues of domestic life,workplace humor, andLGBT rights in Japan.
Many of the chapters depict a sequence in which Shiro, agourmand, purchases food and prepares a meal for himself and Kenji. Shiro narrates the steps to create each dish through hisinternal monologue, and frequently prepares meals that have significance in relation to the plot or themes of the chapter. The collectedtankobon editions of the series contain the recipe for the main dish prepared in each edition.
The events of the series progress inreal time: Shiro and Kenji were respectively 43 and 41 years old when the series began, and as of chapter 101, are 52 and 50 years old.
What Did You Eat Yesterday?, written and illustrated byFumi Yoshinaga, has been serialized inKodansha'sseinen manga magazineMorning since February 22, 2007,[3] and has been collected intotankōbon volumes published byKodansha.[4] In North America, an English language translation of the series has been licensed byVertical since 2014.[2]
Alive-action television drama adaptation ofWhat Did You Eat Yesterday? was announced inMorning magazine on January 23, 2019.[5] That same day,TV Tokyo announced that the series would starHidetoshi Nishijima as Shiro andSeiyō Uchino as Kenji, withNaoko Adachi [ja] as screenwriter and Kazuhito Nakae, Katsumi Nojiri, and Kenji Katagiri as directors.[6][7] The series aired on TV Tokyo's Drama24 programming block from April 5, 2019 to June 28, 2019, with a 90-minute special aired on January 1, 2020.[8]Overground Acoustic Underground [ja] performed the series' opening theme song "Kaerimichi" ("The Way Back Home"), whileFriends performed the closing theme "i o you".[9]
On March 27, 2020,Toho announced that it would produce a live-actionfeature film sequel to the television drama, with the original cast of the television drama reprising their roles and Nakae and Adachi returning as director and scriptwriter, respectively.[10][11] The film was released on November 3, 2021.[12] A second season of the television drama was announced in May 2023, and ran from October to December 2023.[13][14]
A spin-offyaoidōjinshi series,Kenji and Shiro-san (ケンジとシロさん,Kenji to Shiro-san), has been published by Fumi Yoshinaga since 2015. The series depicts scenes alluded to in the original manga, as well as sexual encounters between Kenji and Shiro. Issues of the series have been released by Yoshinaga atComiket.[15]
Acookbook featuring recipes prepared in the television drama,Official Guidebook & Recipes: What Did You Eat Yesterday? ～Shiro's Simple Recipes～ (公式ガイド＆レシピ きのう何食べた？ ～シロさんの簡単レシピ～), was published by Kodansha in April 2019.[16]
Anexhibition featuring sets and props from the television drama, as well as reproductions of pages from the original manga, toured Japan in 2019. The exhibition was displayed inTokyo from June to July,Nagoya from August to September, andOsaka in September.[17]
Five million copies of the Japanese edition ofWhat Did You Eat Yesterday? were in print as of January 2019[18] and 8.4 million copies as of October 2022.[19]
The series has received positive reviews from critics, particularly for its realistic depiction ofgay life in Japan, and is noted as being one of the first pieces of mainstream Japanese media to substantially portray acohabiting gay male couple.[20] Writing forManga Bookshelf, Katherine Dacey praised the series for showcasing "the realities of gay life in Japan depicted in such a matter-of-fact way," while not being "preachy or dreary."[21] Writing forComicsVerse, Melissa Padilla citedWhat Did You Eat Yesterday? as a series that subverts typical LGBTQ manga and anime tropes, noting that it includes a "realistic depiction of a gay couple who are adults rather than high school or college students" and that it "tackles gay issues while still maintaining a leisurely, slice-of-life pace."[22]
What Did You Eat Yesterday? was a nominee for the inauguralManga Taishō Award in 2008,[23] and a jury recommendation at the 13thJapan Media Arts Festival in 2009.[24] In 2019, the series won theKodansha Manga Award for Best General Manga.[25] It has been listed for Book of the Year three times byMedia Factory'sDa Vinci, placing sixth in 2014,[26] fiftieth in 2016,[27] and second in 2020.[28]
What Did You Eat Yesterday? was the most-awarded series at the 101stTelevision Drama Academy Awards [ja] awarded byKadokawa, winning Best TV Series; Best Actor in a Leading Role for Seiyō Uchino (with Hidetoshi Nishijima placing second); Best Screenplay for Naoko Adachi; and Best Director for Kazuhito Nakae, Katsumi Nojiri, and Kenshi Katagiri.[29] The 16thConfidence Award Drama Prize [ja] given byOricon was awarded toWhat Did You Eat Yesterday? for Best TV Series and Best Actor in a Leading Role, the later of which was won by both Nishijima and Uchino.[30] The series was additionally awarded the July 2019Galaxy Award, given by the Japan Council for Better Radio and Television.[31]
Writing forCulture, Society and Masculinities, Katsuhiko Suganuma notes that the relationship between Shiro and Kenji is depicted as largely non-sexual, contrasting stereotypical media portrayals of gay men ashypersexual orsexually deviant.[20] Far from reinforcing equally permissive stereotypes of gay men as emasculated, Suganuma argues that by not depicting Shiro and Kenji's sex life, the series "intentionally ignores the expectations of the curiosity-ridden heteronormative public" to focus on the domestic lives of gay men.[20] Consequently, he cautions against interpretingWhat Did You Eat Yesterday? as being merelyassimilationist orhomonormative, arguing that it "provides readers with occasional instances of modification of gender and sexuality norms in contemporary Japanese society."[20]
Xuan Bach Tran has noted that while cooking media featuring men in Japan typically foregrounds competition and pursuits of excellence, as in series such asIron Chef andOishinbo,What Did You Eat Yesterday? depicts cooking as merely a hobby and a necessity for life.[32] While Shiro embodies many of the traits of the "herbivore man"—he is unambitious in his career, and largely socially withdrawn—he falls out of this category through his love of cooking, and derives his masculinity from "self-care and expressions of selfhood".[32] Suganuma concurs inCulture, Society and Masculinities that as Shiro's utilitarian cooking style is neither archetypically masculine nor archetypically feminine, it "[distances] itself from a polarized gender binary."[20]
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